THE GUTTING OF THE ATLANTIC ACCORD

Guest Post by Ron Penney

I’ve been following with increasing dismay what has been happening over the past number of years as the Federal Government has, through the guise of environmental protection, eroded the authority of the Offshore Petroleum Board created under the Atlantic Accord to jointly manage the oil and gas industry in the province. 

I was a member of the negotiating team which led to the Atlantic Accord, chaired by the late Cyril Abery, then Deputy Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs, reporting to Bill Marshall, the Minister responsible for the offshore negotiations, who in turn reported to the Planning and Priorities Committee of Cabinet, chaired by Premier Brian Peckford. 

These were a very difficult set of negotiations, particularly with the Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, and initially led by the Minister of Natural Resources, Mark Lalonde, who was succeeded by Jean Chretien. Those negotiations were unsuccessful because they refused to meet our two demands: that we would should be given the same right to collect royalties as if the resource was on land, and that it be managed by an independent board composed of equal representation from both governments. 

THE ATLANTIC ACCORD: BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID

It is not a good feeling when government cannot be trusted.

Yet, notwithstanding all the partisan nonsense that props up one Party over another, it is the trust that government acts solely in the public interest that keeps the democratic system strong.

It is an issue that permeates many of the articles and comments that appear on this Blog. Underneath them is the fear, to phrase it in the vernacular, that the Ball Government will “sell the Province down the river”.

There is reason for that and, paradoxically as it may seem, the origins of such scepticism are found with Ball’s Tory predecessors.